Thursday, June 14, 2012

Six Years and Counting


As some may know this tomorrow will mark the 6 year anniversary of the car accident and Saturday will  be the anniversary of Charlie's death. I had originally planned on writing a blog the day of but I made a decision this year to not allow myself to shut the world off, like I do, and do something that day. So I will be busy but I still want to post on the feelings that seem to take over me this time of year. It feels like it starts almost a week before the anniversary. I just become sad, usually I can't pin point it to anything , just sad. Then come the tears, oh Lord I can cry so easily the days before. Like my cat could look at me funny and I would sob. It seems like no matter how prepared I feel about the days to come, they still get me. Not to mention I begin to think 6 (or however long it has been) years ago right now I could still walk or 6 years ago right now I still had my best friend here. I believe these thoughts are what make the days a little more difficult. I know that throughout the year I always have sad moments but these days are different, these days carry unbearable pain with them. It is so hard to think about the battle I had to embark on because of the events on these days. 

For some reason I thought this year would be different since I made a choice to stay active but I think they will be just as tough and I know this week has been pretty horrible. I have had all the normal nightmares night after night of losing the ones I love or being abandoned by them.  The type of nightmares that you wake up feeling bad and that ominous feeling carries with you all day. I still have hope the days will be okay because this year I am trying to celebrate the life that I have now and the life that Charlie led. Even though it was short it is still inspiring. I  am sure those days I will feel the pain of my hole in my heart but still have a smile to know I can finally say after 6 years I am a survivor and no longer fighting to survive. And for that I have to thank that red headed angel who has never left my side.

Okay I have to go do some crying now.. not bad crying but good crying.



Sunday, June 10, 2012

HOBY!

As promised here is another post. Less than a week I do believe. You all should be extremely proud of my new found dedication and boring you with my stories. Haha.

Anyways, to the good stuff. This past Friday I got to go and speak to a group of very amazing soon to be juniors in high school. They were at a 4 day long seminar called HOBY. It is a leadership group that picks the best of the best students in Northwest Ohio to attend and the whole trip is a blast. I personally never was a part of the HOBY family till last year when I crossed paths with an amazing man named Steve Arnold. I like him mostly because his name is almost my name. He agreed to give me a chance and give my presentation at the 2011 HOBY weekend. I was thrilled at the chance and even more thrilled after by the kids reactions. I literally answered questions or over 40 mins and had countless kids come up after giving hugs, words of encouragement, and just expressing their appreciation of me sharing my story. This was a huge push of confidence that I needed because I am never really sure how moving my story is. I mean I am moved by it but this whole ordeal happened to me. After last year I was chomping at the bit to get back to HOBY this year anticipating the same reaction.
2011 HOBY

Boy, oh boy was I right, once again the kids loved it. I was a little more nervous than usual because most of the leaders had told the other kids that I was awesome so I had quite the reputation to live up to. Plus I had made a quick power point of pictures to help facilitate my presentation. It went smoothly, the kids asked tons of questions(my favorite part of the presentations) and all expressed the appreciation. Not to mention the interest of having me come to their schools, which is the best compliment I could ever get. Had some dinner with the kids, was able to chat with a few who sat with me. All in all it was a really nice time. Completely encouraging to see young people who have so much potential in life and are actually choosing to be productive members of society.

Now even though I had amazing time, I still somehow managed to have a paralyzed moment. I hate these moments. They seem to come when I am on top of the world just to bring reality of life crashing down on me. As we were leaving I noticed that I was having a really bad foot spasm. This only means one thing, potty time. And by the way my foot was freaking out it was an immediate potty time. I rushed to the nearest handicap bathroom ( not always the first bathroom) transferred to the toilet. No sooner did I get on the toilet I heard little tinkle noises. DAMN IT! I peed my pants. Now this is a "normalish" thing for a paralyzed person. We can't feel when it is time and even though we are on a schedule nature has other plans occasionally. So now I am in this public bathroom urine soaked pants an hour and a half away from home. Thank the Lord my mom always travels with me for moments such as these. She went to grab the back up pants kept in the van so that I didn't soak pee all over my chair and so we don't have to smell pee the whole way home. Mom hurried back and of course since I got the new van I forgot to put the back up clothes bag back. Luckily I had some giant goodwill looking sweats in the front on their way to be donated and thats what I got to wear home. Cleaned myself up and headed home.

I am not completely sure why I felt like I needed to write this post but I am guessing it is because when I started the blog I wanted my true and real life to be exposed for people to learn and grow from. I have always been very open with my wheelchair mishaps. Feels better to be honest about it than pretend it doesn't happen. The peeing my pants doesn't ruin my days like it did before and I can usually take it in stride. It most definitely didn't ruin my excitement about the day, just a reminder of what my life is and will be most likely forever. I don't want a pitty party or anyone to feel bad for me. Just realize that it isn't just not being able to walk there is so much more that goes into life in a chair. And if you are in a chair don't be embarrassed by those moments they happen, you didn't do it on purpose. As one of my favorite quotes go "Those who matter don't care and those who care don't matter." It is scary how true that statement is.

Monday, June 4, 2012

Losing a Toenail Sucks.

In the beginning of this blog I decided I wanted to open the eyes of many to the life that I lead. I have noticed that most of my posts are slightly depressing or at least some would perceive them as that. But my life is very full of happy moments.With some moments of sadness and frustration. But don't we all? That being said moving on to the topic of the night.

I wanted to take some time to talk a little bit about how very important walking is to the human body. It is amazing to see how much my body has been effected since being paralyzed. There are loads of little stuff that is majorly effected by not being upright. A few months after the accident my mom and I noticed that I kept getting ingrown toenails (sick, I know!) It seemed like no matter what we did the issue wouldn't go away. After battling them for over a year I went to a pediatrist to see what his opinion was. What he told me made me realize just how much maintenance my body would be from now on. According to him because I am not up walking everyday putting pressure on my feet that it causes the actual toe nail to curl under and constantly cause ingrown toenails. I thought to myself so you mean to tell me that standing up even effects the shape of our toenails?! It is crazy to think just how dependent each tiny little part is to the bigger picture.

I had to have surgery on my toes to cut the sides and restitch them to the skin. They took forever to heal because of the lack of circulation in my legs (no muscle contractions to move the blood around, causes yet another health problem). The surgery was almost 5 years ago and my left toenail has never been the same but I just figured that was just the way it was. About 2 months ago I noticed a little black spot under my toenail and thought it was just nail polish I didn't get all the way off. After putting it off and the spot getting bigger I made a doc appointment. Welp, I am probably going to lose the nail for good and the black spot was a fungus. Awesome. Apparently after the surgery my nail never reattached to skin and somehow the fungus made it's way under the nail and made itself a home. Most of the nail had to be cut away to expose the fungus. Twice a day I have to apply oil based something to kill it, the doc said this may take months (another awesome fact). I know it is just a nail and who really cares in the big picture but it is just one of those moments where I want to scream. I hate having to constantly pay attention to any little tiny change in a body part that I can't feel because that little cut or bruise can lead to a much bigger problem. I also realize anyone can get a fugues in their toenail but I am sure if I could feel my toe I would have noticed that the nail had lifted away but I didn't and now here we are.

Moral of the story? My all time favorite DON'T TAKE THE LITTLE THINGS FOR GRANTED, especially your health. Because our health is all we have and who knows when our bodies will need that extra TLC.

Side note, I plan to begin posting weekly if not more and I can promise most of the will be complaining about the stupid grad school application process. Have a Happy Week!